


Unspoken

by cadkitten



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Love, M/M, Romance, Soulmates, mental wandering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 09:42:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17485775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: Words are finite and they are infinite. Words are fragile and easily broken, promises to be left in the dust, and when they have no promises, no words, they cannot break.





	Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> Right, so this was supposed to be for #bottomshiro2019 for sex outside and then this happened and well.. here we are lol  
> Beta: kate1zena

There's something about staring up into the night sky by Shiro's side that pulls the stress away from Keith's shoulders. Just watching the world go by eases the rigid way he holds himself. If Shiro watches, he can see the very instant it happens. The deep breath followed by the gentle sag of his body, the way he leans into Shiro's space like it'll be the end of the world if he doesn't do it. 

Maybe he should have seen it sooner, should have known it would happen so many years ago when he'd first stood in the desert, side-by-side with the rebellious teen and promised him a new tomorrow. If he'd thought about it then, Shiro isn't sure he'd be here today. If he'd thought about it then, he'd have been a different man than the one he is today. 

All the same, he _thinks_ he would have seen it then if he'd known to look. He thinks for someone who's felt a lot of ways about Keith over the years, he's also been foolish and blind as to how Keith's felt. He can look back and see the way Keith's gaze lingered, the way he defaulted to anything Shiro said without question, without reserve until... he hadn't. 

Those memories have been slowly filtering back into his mind – the ones that he feels like are both his own and not. He sees the pain inflicted, the fear born. He sees the exact instant Keith believed the world had lied to him and he watches him leave. Sometimes he dreams the memories and sometimes he sees them because he's looking at someone or something. Sometimes he's struck with them midway through another task. He hates those times the most, the fumble and the lack of focus, the way his heart skips a beat and the way his soul seizes up in agony over the things a man that should have been him has done.

He works to pull himself out of it. He throws himself into every mission and task to try his very best to forget how he's hurt this man that still stands by his side. He doesn't know how or why Keith still does it.

Keith's breath is soft across his arm and when Shiro looks, he's resting there, cheek pressed to flesh, his eyelashes feathered across his skin and Shiro thinks nothing has ever been so beautiful in his entire life.

He aches with this, too. With the closeness, the fondness, the unspoken way they've simply moved on with their relationship. They've never talked about it, never asked any of what had once seemed like the most important questions. They don't have a name for what they are and Shiro isn't sure they ever will. 

They didn't talk about it after the first time Keith slept curled around his side nor the nights after when Shiro found himself in Keith's room, Keith's warmth wrapped around him, his breath even against his chest. There wasn't a word breathed when they came home and they simply stopped going to Keith's apartment at all. They didn't even talk about it when one day they boxed up Keith's things and moved them to Shiro's place. 

Shiro thinks that with anyone else he would have had to say something. He thinks that past him would have cared that there wasn't anything to be spoken about. He thinks there would have been something bitter on his tongue so long ago at the fact that they are not boyfriends, they are not lovers, they are not... spoken for. He thinks that this version of him now is a better man. Words are idle and what they are is anything but. Words are finite and they are infinite. Words are fragile and easily broken, promises to be left in the dust, and when they have no promises, no words, they cannot break. He thinks it's better that they are unspoken.

Keith's hand roams his thigh and Shiro slides his hand down to tangle with his fingers. Their thumbs brush and Shiro feels just like he always does: electric. Shiro is a conduit to Keith's live wire. He's a path to ground. He slides his hand over the space where a wedding band would go on Keith's finger and he contemplates a world where the words are spoken, where those promises and words would become truth. He decides they don't need anything like that to be what they are. Their bond is bigger than pieces of paper and legalities, larger than a band of metal upon each of their fingers. They are more than anything like that could define. 

They are _more_ than love.

The pressure on his thigh increases and Keith leans up. Shiro leans into it, closes his eyes to feel the whisper of Keith's breath across his lips and then the brush of flesh against his own. He's on fire, he's drowning, he's flying higher than should ever be legal and he's grounded like he's never been. Keith is complex and beautiful and complete. 

The kiss deepens and Shiro sinks into it. He doesn't think, he doesn't debate one move from the next. Nothing with Keith has ever been like that. It never will be. Here, he is free. Here, he is Shiro. Within this unspeakable thing, they are each unique and yet entwined, bound by a light and a fire that Shiro believes will never fade. Their breath is one another's air, their space is more infinite than the universe. Together, they are _more_. More than can be defined, more than can be explained. Together, they are limitless. 

Shiro thinks, perhaps, it is better to be unspoken than to be bound. He thinks that _this_ is how it's always supposed to have been.


End file.
